What the critics had to say..
Laundry
and Bourbon
Lone Star
Silo Theatre
New Zealand Herald August the 6th 2001
By SUSAN BUDD
Sexual segregation
rules in James McLure's two, one-act plays. The first features three women
sinking bourbons and coke and talking, as women do, of their lives.
It is superbly performed
and funny, with just a hint of pathos and the merest suggestion of savagery.
In contrast the second,
with three men, is shadowy and unsatisfying. A tale of male angst and
bonding, it lacks the sharp writing and performances of the first.
In Laundry and Bourbon,
Eizabeth, played with dreamy sensitivity by Barbara Woods, has been in
love for years with Roy, a wild and unmanageable but deeply attractive
man with a 1959 pink Thunderbird convertible.
His wildness is turning
sour since he returned to Texas from the war in Vietnam. He drifts, drunk
and unfaithful, while she yearns for the security of marriage.
Hattie should be the
quiet one but even though she married in her teens and is burdened with
three awful kids, she is utterly outrageous.
Who needs subtlety,
when Georgia Duder portrays her with such flamboyance and high comic style?
Crossing her eyes
as she folds the washing, snapping her long legs crossed and contorting
her body into model poses, she is like a hyperactive child playing at
being a vamp.
The tipsy duo are
joined by Amy-Lee, an upwardly mobile Baptist, dripping poison in sugary
tones, beautifully played by Romiley Gorringe.
Lone Star takes place
in the dreary backyard of the local bar and comedy has given way to raw
realism.
Roy, now married to
Elizabeth, confesses that war made him mean and he just can't settle.
His younger brother
Ray worships him, though Roy's halo tarnishes as he revels in tales of
war atrocities and his years of drunken whoring.
Roy is played by David
Dengelo with style and energy, but Ray, as portrayed by Jarrod Lahman
with broad Kiwi vowels, comes across as a sub-Dubya.
It beggars belief
that Elizabeth, even in her hours of greatest need, could have coupled
with him, particularly on the kitchen table.
And it might be an
idea for Greg Ward, as the even nerdier Cletis, to invest in a packet
of Camels rather than a cigarette packet with current health warnings
prominently displayed.
Shakespeare's
Shorts
Silo Theatre -
New Zealand Herald November the 27th 2001
By FRANCIS TILL
Intriguing 20-minute vignettes developed from four Shakespeare plays are offered in this brilliantly costumed and well-staged pastiche, marked by uptown performances in a fringe environment.
The quartet begins with two comedies and closes with two tragedies, a natural flow that gives the sampling a sense of emotional development, although little else strings it together.
First up is a piece drawn on Shakespeare's magical and perhaps most paradoxical play, The Tempest. Director Vanessa Rhodes resets the drama to interesting effect in a mythical Polynesia and opens a huge allegorical chest in the process.
For all the potential freight this move carries, Peter Kaa and Kate Sullivan are great fun to watch as Prospero and Miranda, and add some fascinating embellishments to the traditional characters.
Director Kirsty-Emma Gray also takes a chance with her rapid transitions between contemporary Kiwi and classic Shakespearean language and story telling techniques in the second presentation, a light-hearted contemporary run at Much Ado About Nothing. The bridging is fluid, and the cast- particularly Anna Meech and Pia Midgely - carry off the burlesque with evident relish.
Next, director Andi Revely celebrates the convoluted Tamora, Queen of the Goths, to spectacular effect in her close examination of the rape of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus.
Special attention should go to the (unfortunately uncredited) actress who delivers a feral and chillingly beautiful centrepiece evocation of the murderous, sexually avaricious Queen in a hugely physical slice of this dark play.
The quartet closes with Margaret-Mary Hollins' adaption of Macbeth, a mobile composite that showcases a stunning performance by Katy Parker as Lady Macbeth. Despite a dance scene in, which the music drowns out speech, this segment alone is worth a trip to the Silo.
Like the producer,
Lisa Heath, the directors here are women, and women are generally the
focus in each of the segments. But and search for the thematic commonality
in these exploratory works founders on the absence of the producers note
in the programme, which also fails to credit all the performers.
Shakespeare's
Shorts - Who's That Girl?
Silo Theatre -
by Linda Herrick
Our theatre reviewer Francis Till wrote a generally glowing review last week of the Silo Theatre's Shakespeare's Shorts, compressed versions of four of the bard's works. But he was especially intrigued by the woman who played Tamora in Titus Andronicus but was unlisted in the programme because of an oversight.
"Special
attention should go to the (unfortunately uncredited) actress who delivers
a feral and chillingly beautiful centrepiece,"
wrote Till.
The actress, we can
reveal, was Romiley Gorringe,
who appeared in Laundry and Bourbon at the Silo earlier this year, and
earns a regular crust playing Sybil Fawlty in a restaurant theatre in
Parnell.
Gorringe,
who has trained at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York, is waiting
to hear if she has a part on Street Legal but meanwhile, with the Shakespeare
season just finished; it's back to Sybil for now.
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